


i'm no good on my own

by thegirlofsmarts



Series: widojest week 2020 [6]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, all from yasha's pov, light light mention of the mighty nein, more of a drabble if anything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:08:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25148974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegirlofsmarts/pseuds/thegirlofsmarts
Summary: Sometimes when you’re the two more traumatized people in a group, you tend to find a mutual understanding of each other. Yasha is no stranger to how Caleb is feeling, but sometimes all you can do is watch and wonder to yourself.
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Caleb Widogast
Series: widojest week 2020 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1803091
Comments: 9
Kudos: 47
Collections: Widojest Week 2020





	i'm no good on my own

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: other pov  
> title: i was an island - allison weiss

Sometimes it strikes Yasha oddly how no one seems to know Caleb is in love, or at the very least, they _do_ know, but are doing a very good job of pretending not to. (She’s not sure _why_ they would, but she’s also witnessed much weirder. She distantly wonders if everyone is really good at pretending.)

Sometimes it strikes Yasha oddly at how well Caleb hides it and deflects it every chance he gets, and she wonders how he does it— how he can just stand there and pretend like a part of him doesn’t exist. She wonders if he feels more like dying when he indulges himself or when he doesn’t.

Sometimes Yasha really thinks she’s going crazy, that maybe she’s looking too much into his actions and his words and his face and just _him_ in general and maybe there’s a chance he’s been in love with someone else this entire time, but then she catches Caduceus looking at him with a familiar look of an unfortunate understanding— not empathy, she assumes, but a very deep sympathy she knows he’s definitely capable of— and she feels a little relieved. They don’t conspire together (and she doesn’t think they’d be very good at it anyways), but there’s comfort in knowing you’re not going crazy. She wonders if Caleb was going half as crazy trying desperately to not be in love, and when he failed, if he felt like dying was better than this. Her heart aches for him.

Sometimes, Yasha catches him square in the act— catches him spare an impossibly fond and tender look meant for Jester’s eyes only, catches him going out of his way to do something for her, catches him keeping a careful eye from across the room to make sure she’s okay. And sometimes he catches _her_ catching him, and all he can do is flush and grimace, turning away and hiding from her. She wonders if she’s as obvious watching him in those moments as anyone else is. Maybe it’s only because he knows she knows that he catches her.

Sometimes Yasha doesn’t tell him at all, letting him live in the quiet moments where he thinks no one is watching him, and she feels like that’s the very least she owes him for saving her and being there for her— those moments. The moments when he’ll burrow into his scarf still lingering of her perfume after they hug, when he silently watches over her when they take night watch together to make sure she’s safe, when he checks on her on and off battle, when he seeks her out when she isolates herself so no one sees her. It’s those moments where he’s so unguarded and absentminded in his care for her that she’s too afraid to bring into the light for her commentary, to have him shy away into an infinite corner of darkness. She has the decency to not broach the topic after last time when she was brave enough to ask if he loves her, and seeing him react as such made her hesitant, but _gods_ if she doesn’t want to reach out and take him by the shoulders and tell him that it is okay to _love_ — that he deserved to _be_ loved.

There is a quiet understanding of being two wrecked souls still raw from a special kind of trauma harboring unexpected love in their hearts, and that alone only makes her feel more wretched for him— because she _understands_ , almost hopelessly and uselessly so, the feeling of resentment, of the too late-ness, of the undeserving and unworth, of the confusion, of thinking maybe your life would’ve been better off never meeting this person to save yourself all the dumb fucking heartbreak until you realize you don’t actually like your life without them, but she _also_ understands love is a healing force of nature and has seen the way his love for her has changed and ever so slowly healed him from the broken, dirty wizard they had met in the fated tavern into who he is now— into this someone who learned camaraderie with a bunch of messed up people with their own bundle of problems who thought he was worth it and wouldn’t have even thought to have taken no for an answer if he wanted to walk away— and he tried, and they didn’t. (This is what love is, she tells herself and she hopes he can hear it too. This is your family. They love you— _we_ love you.) She wished she could reach out and tell him all the things she wished someone told her, but he’s almost like a feral cat being caught in a bright light, and so she doesn’t quite know how he’ll react if she did and the last thing she wants is for him to pull away altogether and become a recluse because he never wants to be read that easily ever again— to be so _transparent_ — but her heart aches for him to be happy. She distantly wonders if he’d even allow himself to.

But instead she silently watches him in the unguarded moments he allows himself, and wonders how someone can be so afraid to be this in love with someone.

**Author's Note:**

> the shortest thing i've written for wjw so far!! i actually kind of like it despite its shortness (ya girl be using her ap lang skills to incorporate repetition and anaphora in her fanfics huh) and i've really enjoyed the kinship between yasha and caleb as the two very traumatized introverts of the nein AND it's already totally confirmed she knows he's in love with her so this can totally be canon (plus like? cad is mad insightful he's noticed everything caleb's doing he's just keepin it to himself outside of meaningful looks) ANYWAYS wjw is almost over folks!! i love you stay strong and stay safe i believe in you so hard <333!!!


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